Arjuna asks what becomes of the seeker who has faith but cannot finish the path.
You have faith and you have begun, but your effort is slack and your mind keeps drifting back toward the world. Arjuna asks aloud what becomes of such a seeker, the sincere one who runs out of time before the path is finished.
Arjuna said: A person has faith but cannot control himself, and his mind wanders away from yoga. He fails to reach perfection in yoga. What end does he meet, Krishna?
Having just heard Krishna describe how hard yoga is, how the restless mind must be steadied through long practice and dispassion, Arjuna turns to worry about the one who tries but does not complete the discipline.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
This verse does not teach you anything yet; it lets Arjuna ask. He has heard how steep yoga is, and now a worry rises in him about the one who begins but does not finish.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānuja · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabha · Puruṣottama · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Jñāneśvar · Sivananda · Tilak · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 13 others’ words
This verse is a question, not a teaching. Arjuna is the one speaking. He has just heard Krishna describe how hard the path of yoga is, how the restless mind must be steadied through long practice and dispassion. Now a worry rises in him about the person who tries but does not finish. The whole verse sets up a single anxious question that Krishna will answer in the verses that follow, so reading it well means feeling the worry it carries, not looking yet for resolution.
The person Arjuna sketches is sincere, not false. He has genuine trust in what Krishna has said and has actually set out, but his striving stays slack, the effort of a beginner who falls short.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānuja · Vallabha · Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Sivananda · Tilak · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 11 others’ words
Arjuna sketches a very particular kind of person. This is not a faker or a hypocrite. He has genuine faith, called shraddha, which means trust in the scriptures of yoga and in what Krishna has said. He has actually set out on the path. But his effort is slack. The word for him is 'ayati', and several commentators stress that the prefix 'a-' here does not mean 'no effort at all' but 'little effort', the way 'saltless gruel' still has a trace of salt or a phrase like 'an immodest girl' means only a little immodest. So he is a sincere beginner whose striving falls short, not a person of bad intent.
Because the effort is weak, the mind slips loose from yoga and drifts back toward the things of the senses, having lost the two supports of steady practice and quiet dispassion that would hold it in place.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Sivananda · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 8 others’ words
Because his effort is weak, his mind slips away from yoga. The phrase is 'yogach chalita-manasah', the mind has wandered from the discipline and drifted back toward sense objects. Many commentators tie this drift directly to a lack of two supports named earlier: abhyasa, steady practice, and vairagya, dispassion or non-attachment. Without these the mind cannot hold its ground. Some add that the drift becomes acute at the hour of death, when the senses are agitated, memory fails, and there is no chance left to apply the means; so the mind swerves at the very end.
So he dies without reaching the goal, and the sharp edge of Arjuna's fear is that he seems to lose on both sides, giving up the ordinary fruits of action yet not gaining the realization that yoga would have brought.
Across Advaita, Śuddhādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhakti, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Vallabha · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · Jñāneśvar · Sivananda · RamsukhdasIn Śaṅkara, Ānandagiri, and 9 others’ words
The result is that he dies without reaching the goal: he has 'not attained yoga-samsiddhi', the perfection or full success of yoga. Most commentators understand that perfection as right vision or the realization of the Self, the true fruit of the path. The sharp edge of Arjuna's worry is that such a person seems to lose on both sides. By taking up renunciation and dropping ordinary action, he gives up the ordinary fruits that action would have earned, such as heaven. By failing to complete yoga, he does not gain its fruit, realization. So Arjuna asks plainly: 'kam gatim gachchhati', what course, what destination does he go to, O Krishna?
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Advaita Vedānta, in their fuller words
These commentators read the lost goal as the realization of Brahman, right vision, with which ignorance is destroyed. The seeker is understood as one who renounced action and took up the path of knowledge, doing hearing, reflection, and deep meditation on the great Vedanta teachings. One commentator develops the picture fully: such a person had even gained the fourfold inner qualification and approached a teacher, but through the shortness of life his knowledge stayed unripe, so he dies still ignorant and is therefore not yet liberated. Because he abandoned both action and its accompanying worship, he travels neither the path of light to the world of the gods nor the path of smoke to the world of the fathers; this is precisely why his destination is in doubt, and the same source frames the two possibilities sharply, that he might fall to a hard course, even rebirth as an insect, or, being free of forbidden action, might not, like the sage Vamadeva.
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Here the lost goal is the consummation of the discipline, missed because of a falling-short in the firmer, more settled practice. One commentator reads 6.37 as the opening of a single three-verse question that runs through 6.38 and 6.39: first the basic question of where such a one goes, then the fear that he might perish like a torn cloud, fallen from both sides, and finally the appeal that Krishna alone can cut this doubt; on this reading the Lord's full answer occupies 6.40 through 6.46. This source also frames the moment as the turn from hearing how yoga is practiced to hearing of the greatness of yoga.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators give a tight grammatical clarification of the single word 'ayati'. It means one who makes no effort, one who does not strive. One adds a guard against a possible misreading: the word should be taken in the sense of 'one who does not strive', and not as 'one who is not of the fourth order', that is, not as a label for someone outside the renunciant stage of life.
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators read the seeker as one moved by trust in Krishna's own word, with shraddha but without the support of practice and dispassion, so that from not knowing his own true form his mind wavers from yoga. One stresses Arjuna's address to Krishna as deliberate, reading the chosen name in its sense of 'one who draws or pulls', fitting because the question is laid precisely at the feet of the one who can draw even the fallen soul to himself; the address is no idle word.
Kashmir Śaiva, in their fuller words
This commentator turns attention to faith as the decisive thing. Even if the mind moves away from the yoga already gained, so long as faith is not given up, it is well; but when faith is destroyed, even one who had accomplished yoga makes everything fruitless, for discernment, however gained, once tainted by the wandering mind is swiftly destroyed, as a heap of cotton by fire. He frames the doubt as twofold: does such a one perish, having gone forth from the worlds yet not being rightly merged in Brahman, or, because he is not established in Brahman, does he perish to the ruin of the next world?
Bhakti, in their fuller words
These commentators read the missed fruit as samyag-jnana, true knowledge or the seeing of the Self, lost through slack practice and slack dispassion. Two of them add a hopeful note absent elsewhere: although he has not reached the complete perfection of yoga, he has attained some slight measure of it, rising from the stage of merely wishing to ascend to yoga onto the first level of having ascended; one describes this as the purity of heart and the beginning of Self-seeing reached by one who carried out his duty in some measure. Another renders Arjuna's worry vividly: such a person, faith carrying him forward, gets stranded like an out-of-season cloud that neither gathers strength nor pours down, deprived of both the Supreme Self and the sense-happiness he had given up.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
These commentators keep the picture close to lived experience. One describes a person who has faith in yoga but cannot control the senses and the mind, lacks concentration, and at the last breath, his mind wandering and memory lost, fails to reach Self-realization. One reads 'ayati' as wanting in sufficient effort or control because of one's natural tendencies, with the mind moved away from a karma-yoga understood as equable reason. One paints the seeker warmly: he has a real taste, ruchi, for practice such as japa, meditation, holy company, and study, and does them, but because his inner and outer instruments are not under control his practice has slackness rather than wholehearted devotion, so at the time of death, attachment to the world and dwelling on sense objects still pulling at him, he is disturbed from his practice and cannot stand firm on his goal.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice the exact shape of the failure this verse names. The seeker here is not faulted for lack of love or lack of faith. He genuinely loves the practice and even does it: japa, meditation, holy company, study. What is missing is wholeheartedness, because the inner and outer instruments are not yet under his control, so the practice stays slack instead of becoming his single aim. The quiet teaching for you is that taste and faith are already real ground beneath your feet; the work that remains is not to manufacture more belief but to steady the mind so that the practice you already love can become whole-hearted, undivided, and firm on its goal, especially so that attachment to the world and the pull of sense objects do not unseat you at the very moments when standing firm matters most.
Take heart that your taste for the practice and your faith are already real ground beneath your feet; the work that remains is not to manufacture more belief but to steady the mind, so that the practice you already love can grow whole and undivided.
Read deeper
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Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse is a question, not a teaching. Arjuna is the one speaking. He has just heard Krishna describe how hard the path of yoga is, how the restless mind must be steadied through long practice and dispassion. Now a worry rises in him about the person who tries but does not finish. The whole verse sets up a single anxious question that Krishna will answer in the verses that follow, so reading it well means feeling the worry it carries, not looking yet for resolution.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Arjuna sketches a very particular kind of person. This is not a faker or a hypocrite. He has genuine faith, called shraddha, which means trust in the scriptures of yoga and in what Krishna has said. He has actually set out on the path. But his effort is slack. The word for him is 'ayati', and several commentators stress that the prefix 'a-' here does not mean 'no effort at all' but 'little effort', the way 'saltless gruel' still has a trace of salt or a phrase like 'an immodest girl' means only a little immodest. So he is a sincere beginner whose striving falls short, not a person of bad intent.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Because his effort is weak, his mind slips away from yoga. The phrase is 'yogach chalita-manasah', the mind has wandered from the discipline and drifted back toward sense objects. Many commentators tie this drift directly to a lack of two supports named earlier: abhyasa, steady practice, and vairagya, dispassion or non-attachment. Without these the mind cannot hold its ground. Some add that the drift becomes acute at the hour of death, when the senses are agitated, memory fails, and there is no chance left to apply the means; so the mind swerves at the very end.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The result is that he dies without reaching the goal: he has 'not attained yoga-samsiddhi', the perfection or full success of yoga. Most commentators understand that perfection as right vision or the realization of the Self, the true fruit of the path. The sharp edge of Arjuna's worry is that such a person seems to lose on both sides. By taking up renunciation and dropping ordinary action, he gives up the ordinary fruits that action would have earned, such as heaven. By failing to complete yoga, he does not gain its fruit, realization. So Arjuna asks plainly: 'kam gatim gachchhati', what course, what destination does he go to, O Krishna?
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the lost goal as the realization of Brahman, right vision, with which ignorance is destroyed. The seeker is understood as one who renounced action and took up the path of knowledge, doing hearing, reflection, and deep meditation on the great Vedanta teachings. One commentator develops the picture fully: such a person had even gained the fourfold inner qualification and approached a teacher, but through the shortness of life his knowledge stayed unripe, so he dies still ignorant and is therefore not yet liberated. Because he abandoned both action and its accompanying worship, he travels neither the path of light to the world of the gods nor the path of smoke to the world of the fathers; this is precisely why his destination is in doubt, and the same source frames the two possibilities sharply, that he might fall to a hard course, even rebirth as an insect, or, being free of forbidden action, might not, like the sage Vamadeva.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the lost goal is the consummation of the discipline, missed because of a falling-short in the firmer, more settled practice. One commentator reads 6.37 as the opening of a single three-verse question that runs through 6.38 and 6.39: first the basic question of where such a one goes, then the fear that he might perish like a torn cloud, fallen from both sides, and finally the appeal that Krishna alone can cut this doubt; on this reading the Lord's full answer occupies 6.40 through 6.46. This source also frames the moment as the turn from hearing how yoga is practiced to hearing of the greatness of yoga.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
These commentators give a tight grammatical clarification of the single word 'ayati'. It means one who makes no effort, one who does not strive. One adds a guard against a possible misreading: the word should be taken in the sense of 'one who does not strive', and not as 'one who is not of the fourth order', that is, not as a label for someone outside the renunciant stage of life.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read the seeker as one moved by trust in Krishna's own word, with shraddha but without the support of practice and dispassion, so that from not knowing his own true form his mind wavers from yoga. One stresses Arjuna's address to Krishna as deliberate, reading the chosen name in its sense of 'one who draws or pulls', fitting because the question is laid precisely at the feet of the one who can draw even the fallen soul to himself; the address is no idle word.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator turns attention to faith as the decisive thing. Even if the mind moves away from the yoga already gained, so long as faith is not given up, it is well; but when faith is destroyed, even one who had accomplished yoga makes everything fruitless, for discernment, however gained, once tainted by the wandering mind is swiftly destroyed, as a heap of cotton by fire. He frames the doubt as twofold: does such a one perish, having gone forth from the worlds yet not being rightly merged in Brahman, or, because he is not established in Brahman, does he perish to the ruin of the next world?
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators read the missed fruit as samyag-jnana, true knowledge or the seeing of the Self, lost through slack practice and slack dispassion. Two of them add a hopeful note absent elsewhere: although he has not reached the complete perfection of yoga, he has attained some slight measure of it, rising from the stage of merely wishing to ascend to yoga onto the first level of having ascended; one describes this as the purity of heart and the beginning of Self-seeing reached by one who carried out his duty in some measure. Another renders Arjuna's worry vividly: such a person, faith carrying him forward, gets stranded like an out-of-season cloud that neither gathers strength nor pours down, deprived of both the Supreme Self and the sense-happiness he had given up.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators keep the picture close to lived experience. One describes a person who has faith in yoga but cannot control the senses and the mind, lacks concentration, and at the last breath, his mind wandering and memory lost, fails to reach Self-realization. One reads 'ayati' as wanting in sufficient effort or control because of one's natural tendencies, with the mind moved away from a karma-yoga understood as equable reason. One paints the seeker warmly: he has a real taste, ruchi, for practice such as japa, meditation, holy company, and study, and does them, but because his inner and outer instruments are not under control his practice has slackness rather than wholehearted devotion, so at the time of death, attachment to the world and dwelling on sense objects still pulling at him, he is disturbed from his practice and cannot stand firm on his goal.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I have real faith and have genuinely begun the path but die before I finish, with my practice still weak, have I wasted my life and lost everything on both sides?
First, see clearly that this is Arjuna's fear, not yet Krishna's verdict. The verse only poses the question; it deliberately leaves the answer for the verses ahead. So the dread of having 'lost everything on both sides' is the doubt being raised here, not the conclusion being taught.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Vedānta Deśika · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Next, notice how carefully the verse describes you. The person in question is not a pretender; he has true faith and has actually set out on the path. His shortfall is only that his effort is slack and his mind has drifted, often for reasons outside his control such as the shortness of life or a mind not yet trained. The verse is precise about this so that sincerity itself is never what is in doubt.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Finally, some commentators already lean toward reassurance within this very verse. One reads that even an incomplete seeker has attained some real measure of perfection, having risen from merely wishing to climb toward yoga onto the first rung of having begun to climb, so the effort is not nothing. Another insists that what matters most is that faith not be abandoned, for as long as faith holds the ground is not lost. The worry of total waste is real enough to ask aloud, but the verse itself plants the seeds of its own answer.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Notice the exact shape of the failure this verse names. The seeker here is not faulted for lack of love or lack of faith. He genuinely loves the practice and even does it: japa, meditation, holy company, study. What is missing is wholeheartedness, because the inner and outer instruments are not yet under his control, so the practice stays slack instead of becoming his single aim. The quiet teaching for you is that taste and faith are already real ground beneath your feet; the work that remains is not to manufacture more belief but to steady the mind so that the practice you already love can become whole-hearted, undivided, and firm on its goal, especially so that attachment to the world and the pull of sense objects do not unseat you at the very moments when standing firm matters most.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.